If Washington is Hollywood for ugly stars, as a washed up politician used to say, then party conventions are the Oscars for ugly people.
Maybe that’s why I kept expecting to see Snooki of the MTV reality show “Jersey Shore” at the Republican National Convention and got the next best thing — her governor, New Jersey’s Chris Christie, who looks as stuffed in his suits as Snooki into one of her bikinis.
“The greatest lesson mom ever taught me,” Christie told the convention, ‘was this one: she told me there would be times in your life when you have to choose between being loved and being respected.
“She said to always pick being respected, that love without respect was always fleeting — but that respect could grow into real, lasting love.
“Now, of course, she was talking about women.”
All I can say is, are we ready for President Snooki?
Christie is widely mentioned as a future presidential candidate, which means perhaps that we shouldn’t laugh when the same is said of Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.
They’d be a heckuva bi-partisan ticket. Christie and Villaraigosa. An Amen almost seems fitting.
Or maybe a guy like Christie, a candidate for a Jenny Craig commercial who looks like he sweats a lot, is the everyman hope for the future of the Republican Party.
His was a stump speech that was intended as a keynote, and as such he had mom and if not apple pie, then at least a touch of Don Corleone.
“I am the son of an Irish father and a Sicilian mother,” he said. “My Mom, who I lost 8 years ago, was the enforcer.”
And I’m not joking about the Governor Snooki part. Listen to this, out of his own mouth, no less:
“I was her son as I listened to ‘Darkness on the Edge of Town’ with my high school friends on the Jersey Shore.”
The Jersey Shore!
Christie was best watched on MSNBC, the worst of the cable stations or maybe it’s just Martin Bashir, who is utterly unwatchable, like bad NPR. So if you were watching this on television, you were safer on CNN where they split screen at times with a wet Anderson Cooper, looking dapper in a black hoodie, covering Hurricane Isaac, somewhere in Louisiana.
Meanwhile, none of the stations showed you any of the beautiful stars – surely there were some – not even actor John Voight who was on the convention. Maybe if he’d carried a sign saying, “I AM ANGELINA JOLIE’S DAD.”
The most curious speech of the night may have been that of Rick Santorum whose endorsement of Mitt Romney may have been easily missed. He gave a speech about shaking hands with almost everyone in America except Romney.
Of course, that may be to Romney’s benefit among some Latino voters since Santorum still hasn’t lived down demanding that Puerto Ricans adopt English as their official language if they want statehood.
Any doubt about the Puerto Rican influence on the Romneys was removed when you saw that it was Luce Vela, the wife of the governor of Puerto Rico, who introduced Ann Romney to the convention.
But back to Gov. Snooki who did have some nice lines:
“They believe in teacher’s unions. We believe in teachers.”
“It’s the power of our ideas, not of our rhetoric, that attracts people to our party.”
“We need politicians to care more about doing something and less about being something.”
“We have never been victims of destiny. We have always been masters of our own.”
It’s proof that a little reality show can go a long way.